The Los Angeles Lakers just won their 16th NBA championship, second most in league history to the 17 won by the Boston Celtics. They have won 11 of those since moving to Los Angeles in 1960, the first coming in 1972. How did they do it? Well, certainly there was some astute player evaluation and smart drafting involved but, first and foremost, no franchise has been in position to take advantage of dumb luck more than the Lakers.
Without lucky trades, no team can win championships. The Celtics, after all, got Bill Russell, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish as the result of one-sided trades. But no team has made more lopsided trades to their benefit than the Lakers. Lopsided trades landed them Hall of Famers Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Bob McAdoo and James Worthy. They landed them future Hall of Famers Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol. They landed them elite role players Robert Horry, Happy Hairston and Byron Scott.
Below is a list of the lopsided deals the Lakers have constructed to build their 40-year dominance of the NBA and it doesn't even include signing Shaquille O'Neal as a free agent.
July 9, 1968
Lakers: C Wilt Chamberlain
Sixers: F Jerry Chambers, G Archie Clark, C Darrall Imhoff
Resulting Lakers championships: 1972
Why the Sixers made this deal is in some dispute. According to Dr. Jack Ramsay, the Sixers general manager at the time, Wilt threatened to bolt for the ABA after coach Alex Hannum left Philadelphia. However it has also been stated that Chamberlain wanted to go to LA because he felt he had become too big for Philadelphia, wanted to hang out with celebrities and wanted to date and have sex with white women (20,000 of them!) which was considered taboo in 1960s America, except in LA. Chamberlain became the first reigning MVP ever traded in the following offseason and the Sixers received three players that accomplished nothing in the NBA, although Jerry Chambers was a Final Four Most Outstanding Player in 1966. So he has that going for him.
This was the second time in his career that Chamberlain had been traded for a crappy return. After moving to San Francisco, the Warriors traded Wilt to the Sixers for Paul Neumann, Connie Dierking and Lee Shaffer in 1965. The financially-strapped Warriors also received $150,000. Part of the impetus for this trade, according to Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli, was that the fans of San Francisco hated Wilt.
November 27, 1969
Lakers: F Happy Hairston
Pistons: F Bill Hewitt, 1970 3rd round pick (Jim Hayes)
Resulting Lakers championships: 1972
Hairston had been an excellent player for years with the Royals and Pistons before coming to the Lakers. Hewitt was a young player who had underwhelmed in just over a season with the Lakers and who continued to underwhelm after this deal.
June 16, 1975
Lakers: C Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, C Walt Wesley
Bucks: G Junior Bridgeman, F/C Dave Meyers, C Elmore Smith, G/F Brian Winters
Resulting Lakers championships: 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988
Claiming that Milwaukee did not meet his cultural needs, presumably his conversion to the Nation of Islam, Abdul-Jabbar asked the Bucks to trade him to either New York (where he was from) or Los Angeles (where he went to college). With only two teams able to bid on him, Milwaukee could create no bidding war and was forced to deal him for 15 cents on the dollar. Bridgeman, for what it's worth, actually had a nice enough career.
August 5, 1976
Lakers: 1977 1st round pick (F Kenny Carr, 6th overall), 1978 1st round pick (G/F Freeman Williams, 8th overall), 1979 1st round pick (G Magic Johnson, 1st overall), 1980 2nd round pick (G Sam Worthen)
Jazz: G Gail Goodrich, 1977 2nd round pick (F Essie Hollins), 1978 1st round pick (G/F Jack Givens, 16th overall)
Resulting Lakers championships: 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988
This deal was put together as a compensatory deal for the Jazz signing Goodrich on July 19, 1976 when he was 33 years old. In three seasons with the Jazz, they never had a winning record. The last of which, 1978-79, they had the worst record in the league and Goodrich promptly retired. The No. 1 overall pick they would have had went to the Lakers, who happily took Magic Johnson.
February 15, 1980
Lakers: 1983 1st round pick (F James Worthy, 1st overall), G Butch Lee
Cavaliers: F Don Ford, 1980 1st round pick (G Chad Kinch, 22nd overall)
Resulting Lakers championships: 1985, 1987, 1988
This was one of a series of trades in which Cavaliers owner Ted Stepien gave away first-round picks for marginal return. To prevent doing this, the league instituted a rule that teams cannot trade away first-round picks in consecutive seasons, commonly referred to as the "Stepien Rule."
December 24, 1981
Lakers: C Bob McAdoo
Nets: 1983 2nd round pick (G Kevin Williams)
Resulting Lakers championships: 1982, 1985
In fairness to the Nets, former MVP Bob McAdoo appeared to clearly be at the end of the line and had bounced around the league from Buffalo to Boston to Detroit to New Jersey for a few years before being shipped off to the Lakers. Once he joined the Lakers, he became a happy sixth man who backed up Kareem more than effectively.
October 10, 1983
Lakers: G Byron Scott, C Swen Nater
Clippers: G Norm Nixon, G Eddie Jordan, 1986 2nd round pick (pick eventually made by Phoenix), 1987 2nd round pick (G Bruce Dalrymple)
Resulting Lakers championships: 1985, 1987, 1988
Scott was the fourth overall pick in the 1983 draft with the Clippers and was traded during training camp of his rookie year. The Clippers figured Nixon would be a nice veteran point guard who was stuck behind Magic with the Lakers. As usual, this deal failed for the Clippers and Nixon lasted just four seasons, although he was pretty good for a couple of them. The second round pick in 1986 that was eventually made by Phoenix turned out to be Jeff Hornacek.
July 11, 1996
Lakers: G Kobe Bryant
Hornets: C Vlade Divac
Resulting Lakers championships: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2009, 2010
Prior to the 1996 draft, the high school eligible Bryant declared he only wanted to play for the Lakers. Lakers general manager Jerry West loved Bryant's pre-draft workout, calling it the best he had ever seen (and this is the general manager who put together the 1980s Lakers dynasty).
The Lakers and Hornets arranged a trade at the draft with the Hornets selecting Bryant 13th overall on June 26, 1996 and trading his rights to the Lakers when the trade/free agent freeze period expired. The Lakers were thrilled to move Divac because they were trying to clear cap space in an effort to sign a free agent to take Vlade's position--Shaquille O'Neal.
January 10, 1997
Lakers: F Robert Horry, C Joe Kleine
Suns: F Cedric Ceballos, G Rumeal Robinson
Resulting Lakers championships: 2000, 2001, 2002
Horry had fallen out of favor in Phoenix after throwing a towel in the face of coach Danny Ainge. In fairness to the Suns, while Horry had already won two titles with Houston in 1994 and 1995, he had not yet earned the "Big Shot Rob" moniker and reputation for clutch shots in playoff games (even though he had made them for the Rockets) and being one of the all-time great role players that he would garner in winning three championships with the Lakers and two more with the Spurs in the 2000s.
Ceballos had actually had a couple decent years with the Lakers but was a one-dimensional scorer best known for winning a slam dunk contest while blindfolded.
July 20, 2007
Lakers: G Derek Fisher
Jazz: Nothing
Resulting Lakers championships: 2009, 2010
After an inspired playoff performance with the Jazz in 2007, Fisher asked to be released because of his toddler daughter's rare form of eye cancer. Fisher felt he needed to live in either New York or Los Angeles in order to make sure his daughter had the highest level of care available to her at all times. Utah, rather than attempting to trade him to the Lakers, Knicks or Clippers, obliged and granted him his release. The Lakers, for whom Fisher had played from 1996-2004, eagerly signed him as a veteran who Kobe Bryant, at the time wanting to be traded, liked and respected.
February 1, 2008
Lakers: F/C Pau Gasol, 2010 2nd round pick
Grizzlies: F Kwame Brown, G Javaris Crittendon, C Marc Gasol, 2008 1st round pick (F Donte Green, 28th overall)
Resulting Lakers championships: 2009, 2010
A deal so lopsided that it prompted Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, whose team was the defending champion at the time, to publicly complain about it. The Lakers continued their history of getting elite big men for nothing and all they had to do was give up Brown, who is perhaps the worst No. 1 overall draft pick in modern NBA history, and the rights to Pau's mediocre little brother Marc (who admittedly had an okay season this past year). Playing alongside Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol went from being a really, really good big man (who had already won a Rookie of the Year award and led two undermanned Grizzlies teams to the playoffs) to being the best big man in the league.
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